47. To Sanctuary
To Sanctuary
The Resh’Agar stood with the Sovereign Flame on the high balcony overlooking the Sokar’s sacred Path of Fire. Both men watched as the crowds bowed and the torches flared to life at each milestone of the procession.
He adjusted his fanged half mask over the bottom half of his face, his blue eyes alert and unyielding. He’d sent Reskala to guard every path and road, no matter how abandoned. His fear was a Solutus strike—this ceremony was a perfect opportunity to leave a message in blood.
Beside him, Shu’Khan noted his unease.
“You think you can contain her, Iridias?” The Sovereign’s voice was almost fond. “You think you can hold her in your hands?”
He gestured outward. To the crowds. To the temple arches and broken rooftops, carved away to make room for the spectacle.
“We have made her divine. Beloved. So much more than the fate you abandoned her to when you brought her here.”
The Resh’Agar did not look at him, his fists tight at his sides.
“You’re trying to break her into something that fits what you want,” he said. “But she won’t break.”
Shu’Khan stroked his lips with a single finger. Thoughtful.
“We will protect what is Ours,” he said. “As long as she obeys.”
Then—a tremor.
A flicker of mana at the edge of the Path.
First one scream. Then many.
The sea of people hissed and shifted into disarray. Some ran. Some fainted. Others stared dumbly at the final pillar.
Kailorien's hands gripped the carved marble edge of the viewing platform, his heart steady, but his shoulders tensed. Solutus erupted from the ground in droves, and the Reskala he’d stationed all around the plaza immediately rushed to intercept them.
They drew their shields, the towering bulwarks flaring white in the blazing sun.
Thrassus burst from the crowd, bellowing commands for formations.
The warriors tried to surround the attackers, but their movements were limited in such a dense crowd.
They could not cast and wield their blades with so many bodies in the way.
The People were too panicked. They ran into the warriors, grabbed at their shields, their arms, even their legs. The Reskala moved them aside without harm, but each moment spent pacifying the crowd was a moment the Solutus used to get past them.
The rebels funneled towards the final torch, where Kailorien sensed Auryn’s magic flaring. His heart lurched, but he gritted his teeth and steadied himself. She could handle herself. Even without Veilpiercer in her hands, she was far from helpless.
If he didn’t assist the Reskala, she would be in more danger.
Shu’Khan’s cold gaze settled on him, but the Resh’Agar did not turn to meet his eyes. He wasn't interested in asking for permission.
Straightening, he lifted his hand and extended it forward. Breath by breath, he let down the wall between his will and that of all those tied to the Flaeme. Their terror pierced him like a thousand spears, but he held firm, wrapping his command around their souls, chaining them, binding them.
The screams below grew quieter. Those who were fleeing, grabbing, trampling, stopped mid-action and looked up at the balcony above.
Their eyes grew glassy and hollow, the glow within them intensifying.
First, fifteen. Then thirty. More and more souls gathered at the call of the Resh’Agar until most of the crowd froze, allowing the Reskala the freedom they needed to maneuver in the raging battle in the plaza.
“Resh…Resh…Resh…Resh…”
The crowd’s chant was sluggish—lacking in fervor or emotion—but it grew in volume until its undulating syllables merged with the Solutus horns and battle cries around them.
Moving his hand, the Resh’Agar guided the citizens to move aside, to shuffle in clumsy steps towards the western portion of the plaza.
All the while, his eyes swept the crowd, scanning, searching…
Auryn…my love…where are you?
A growl in the back of his mind rumbled through his spine. A heat at the nape of his neck.
IRIDIAS.
COME CLOSER.
I CAN SMELL YOUR FEAR FOR HER.
brING THE WALL DOWN. JUST A LITTLE MORE…JUST ANOTHER STEP…
SET ME FREE!
And then it hit him.
A spike of agony tore through the Bond. Ribs screaming, breath shorn away. His vision blurred red. His heart lurched with her descent, the echo of her impact tearing through him as though his own bones had splintered.
Below, his control over the crowd buckled as he rushed to slam the walls closed once more. Vargrún's voice faded, but his power snaked through his veins like rivers of flame.
Screams of panic erupted once more among the worshippers.
Not even their natural tether to the Flaeme could restrain their shrieks and terror.
Some ran, trampling innocents beneath their heels.
Thrassus guided his warriors to hold order, but nothing they did could halt the sharply rising chaos.
Some worshippers dropped to their knees before the Prismatum—praying to the Destroyer to save his own, praying to the Resh’Agar to intervene.
They pointed to something on the ground.
Cold sweat broke out on the Resh’Agar’s nape when he saw a gaping hole there leading down into some kind of pit. Some of the worshippers tried to jump inside, shrieking, “Sokar! Radiance!”
Those not fighting Solutus tried to stop the men and women—even child Apprentices—from throwing themselves into the pit, but the rebels left them little time for distraction.
Shu’Khan stepped closer. For a single breath, the Sovereign Flame no longer looked like a statue, or a god, or a dream made flesh.
He looked furious. A fracture in a glacier. Cold. Vast. Eternal.
“Go to her, Iridias,” he murmured. “Bring her home.”
The Resh’Agar turned—swift and silent—fury trailing behind him like smoke. At the far edge of the balcony, he drew a black crystal dagger from his waist. Without hesitation, he dragged the edge across his forearm, forming a ghostly cut. Deep. Deliberate. Blood met mana. Golden-blue sparks flew.
With one hand, he reached through the fabric of the Veil and tore a portal into existence—the jagged, sparking tear howling with power. It moaned, fractured the air, snapped like a storm wind through the lattice around him.
The air howled louder than the Onyx Horns ever had.
The balcony exploded in a shower of broken stone, scorching mana, and flying rubble.
The Resh’Agar towered like a battlement, Morvane glowing blue with rage, his thick onyx cloak flying and snapping behind him in the wind.
The half mask on his face came alive, the fanged maw snarling with its owner’s god-like fury.
But the world didn’t comply with his will fast enough. The portal opened too slowly. And so, his eyes burst into flames of blue and aquamarine, fire pouring from them as he reached out with both hands and sundered everything.
The air.
The Veilweave.
The world.
He violated all the laws of nature. Ripped reality apart. The portal opened to its full breadth. Not amber like the sanctioned transport systems used throughout the city, but crimson. Unnatural. Unholy. Like the rifts that carried Varkhounds during the Cycle of Dark.
Yet—despite this feat which should have only been the purvey of the gods—the Resh’Agar did not make a single sound. Did not look pleased or angered. Only focused. Impartial as the Void, his gaze razor-sharp with purpose as he stepped into the tear and vanished.
In moments, the air beside the final beacon on the plaza screamed as it was rent in twain. The Arm of the Void stepped out, Morvane agleam with nether residue. His black hair flew behind him in an inky curtain, and his fanged mask bore its maw in warning to any who would stop him.
He looked down into the pit, unbothered by the screaming people, the fighting Reskala, the flying magic, or the sudden explosion somewhere far behind him on the dais of the Prismatum.
His eyes narrowed, searching.
Until he saw her.
He ripped off his mask, his broad chest heaving, and bellowed—
“Auryn!”
His magic detonated in a radius larger than the Blightsphere.
A shockwave burst outward from his skin, blowing apart what was left of the beacon, turning the chiseled granite and marble into dust. Worshippers nearby scrambled away in terror, unable to tell whether it was the Resh’Agar—or something else—rising from the wreckage.
Still aflame, his eyes took in the sight of the body of his wounded Sokar.
Crumpled so far down in the dark pit below that only his rune-lit eyes could find her.
She was still, bleeding silver into the long-dead and barren stone beneath her.
Her left arm was bent at an unnatural angle—shoulder dislocated or shattered, he could not tell.
Her head had struck the stone edge of the ceremonial torch base.
Silver blood spilled across her temple, trailing into the dirt and rock like molten starlight.
Pain seared through the Bond, so vast he couldn’t find the source.
But pain meant life.
And life meant urgency.
He began his climb downwards.
His body radiated so much raw power that each foothold, each handhold, gouged the earth.
The ground shook. The air writhed as though trying to escape his radius.
Mana—already rotting from the Cycle’s heat—now boiled and roiled in fury.
The white and grey marble of the Opaline Court melted.
The effigy to the Destroyer at the center shed scalding tears from its lifeless eyes.
When he made it to the bottom, the mighty Resh’Agar dropped to his knees beside his Consort. He ignored the mangled corpses of the Solutus surrounding them. His lips moved, but the sound of his voice could not surpass the cataclysm now unfolding all around them both.
He touched her cheek but couldn’t feel her breath.
She looked like a bird cut down mid-flight. Her wings torn. Her feathers snapped and shattered. Her Ashborne gown had been shredded in the fall. The intricate crystal threading looked like spiderwebs clinging to bruised skin, catching in blood-soaked starlight hair.
Time stopped.
All went silent as the grave.
The Sovereign’s Mandate was clear.
Bring her home.
But home was not the Jade Lattices.
Not for either of them.
He was her home.
Her safety.
Her sanctuary.
And so, he lifted her broken body in his arms. The rift answered his call once again, but this time he did not tear it in a rage. He opened it as sanctuary, carrying her where no worship save his own could reach.